This is the feat that a herd of calves aged between 6 and 12 months has just undergone, leaving Tarragona (Spain) on December 18, 2020 and returning to Cartagena (Spain) on March 19, 2021. They were 1,776 at the start. We do not yet know how many they are at the finish. In any case, they will not be welcomed as heroes. They will be destroyed as suspicious and expired goods. The cargo was suspected in Türkiye of carrying bluetongue disease and was refused entry on the grounds that outbreaks of the disease had been identified in the autonomous community of Aragon on the border with France. Attempts to land in Libya and Egypt failed for the same reason. The health certificates for the Charolais and Limousin calves attested to their Aragonese origin, but according to the shipowners and cargo owners, this was an administrative error and the calves, which spent 3 months at sea behind bars, came from regions unaffected by the internationally notifiable viral disease.
The livestock carrier Elbeik was built in 1967 and is owned by the shipowner Ibrahim Maritime Ltd, registered in Liberia c/o Rana Maritime Services SA (Lebanon). Despite being laden down with deficiencies noted by maritime safety inspectors in Romania, Egypt and Slovenia, and banned from European waters for 3 months (March to May 2015) for repeated detentions, the Elbeik continues, however, to be approved even today by the European Union health authorities.
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